


walking on knives

by sapphfics



Series: once upon a time... [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, F/F, Joffery is his own warning, Lesbian Margaery Tyrell, Lesbian Sansa Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 13:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13272078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphfics/pseuds/sapphfics
Summary: She did not remember much after that, only finding consciousness on the beach, with a pair of lovely doe eyes staring down at her.“Are you alright?” She asked.“Why -“ Sansa coughed, struggled to sit up. “Why did you save me?”“I want very much for you to be happy,” the girl replied, her voice as matter-a-fact as it could ever be. Sansa was reminded of a lady in a song she thought she had forgotten. She knew that all those songs were useless to her now, but she could recall them all still if she tried.At the sound of footsteps rushing towards her, the girl vanished as quickly as she had appeared, leaving Sansa wondering if she had only been a beautiful dream.Or: the unnecessary little mermaid au that no one asked for.





	walking on knives

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for sansa’s depression and suicidal thoughts and for physical abuse during the first two sections. 
> 
> be safe! <3

For as long as she had know it had existed, Margaery had longed to see the land above.

It was not because she hated her home, of course. She lived in a beautiful garden of flowers at the bottom of the ocean that had always been called Highgarden. No-one had seen a human for centuries, and they were glad for it. Even her own father thought her foolish to care for them in such a way.

“If any humans find you, they’ll cut off your tails, skin your scales, and eat you for dinner.” He warned her. “I forbid you to -“

Her grandmother glared at him, stopping his command. “You know just as well as I do that you cannot forbid her. I run this household, not you. When Margaery has reached her sixteenth year, she will be allowed to rise up above the sea and lie on the rocks, to watch the ships go by, and be able to see both the forest and the land, just the same as you and I did.”

Her father huffed in annoyance, but he knew better than to try and argue. Her grandmother’s tongue was sharper than a pufferfish. Margaery smiled at her and her grandmother winked back. They both shared a fondness for humans.

It was her grandmother who had given her the statue of the man, the only human object she had.

“His name was Eddard Stark,” her grandmother explained. “He was betrayed and executed by a cruel human king, Joffrey, but his family loved him so much they had this statue carved in his likeness. The boat that was to bring it to them sank, sadly.”

“Is he...is the king the reason you stopped going above?” Margaery had asked, although she struggled to imagine her grandmother being afraid of anything.

“No,” Her grandmother said, sternly. “When your mother died, I took over the running of the household, since your father wasn’t capable. I would like to go up again, one day, once you are all grown.”

“You will,” Margaery promised. “You could come with me, if you wanted.”

“That night belongs to you and you alone,” Her grandmother told her.

“We will go together afterwards, then.” Margaery said, determined.

Her grandmother smiled, a fleeting thing, and Margaery hugged her. From then on, the days before her birthday fell away like sinking ships.

-:-

Sansa stood among the terrified members of the court, trying to keep herself unnoticed for as long as she could. Though she may have felt as if she had become a ghost, she was not yet dead, no matter how much she wished for it.  
  
Joffery smiled down at her and she shivered. Nothing good ever happened when their king was happy, but she dreaded to think what else may occur if he were not. Nothing good ever happened in court, not anymore.

She wondered who would die today.

To her relief, he turned away from her and toward the cook who had served him his soup. The cook was a small, nervous looking man who Sansa had never spoken too. Joffery then ordered the poor man to be boiled alive in his own pot for making the soup too hot.

In the heavy silence left after the man’s screams faded away, Joffery dismissed the court. Sansa allowed herself a sigh of relief.

“Wait,” He called. He never addressed her by name for a traitor’s daughter had no name.

She turned back to him, curtseying. “What is it, your Majesty?”

“For reasons passing understanding, my dearest mother has insisted we go sailing together,” He laughed, cold and cruel. “I think she must intend to bore me to tears.”

No, Sansa thought. You must plan to have me drowned at sea.

She considered it. Would the King really give up the only living leverage he had against her family? Now that there were rumours the Queen’s beloved brother had been killed, it was certainly possible. And besides, Joffery was King now, and therefore believed he could do whatever he pleased just as The Seven intended.

“When do we set sail, my Lord?” If she was going to die, at least she would die whilst there was still something more than darkness left within her. Maybe, she could even bribe a messenger to deliver a letter to her family, apologising for the last one she had sent them. Would they even believe her? She hoped that they would. It was all she could do.

“At daybreak,” He told her, then waved his hand, and she took her leave.

The thought of death did not frighten her anymore. Once she was dead, she would finally be free of him. Drowning would take only ten minutes, or so she remembered from Old Nan’s stories of forgotten sailors, and then she would finally be safe. She would be with her father again, and Lady, and all the family who had died before she was born. She wondered if the dead still bore the wounds that killed them, even in the afterlife. She only hoped that he would forgive her, at least.

When their gracious king finally allowed her to leave, Sansa knew exactly where to go. She prayed in the Sept - though it was far too hot to be anything like the one her father had built for her mother - just like her mother before her. But her gods were also in the trees, in the wind, in every living thing, and as she walked through the palaces beautiful rose garden, she prayed one last time. It would not be a crime, she hoped, to worship them all. No one spoke to her, and she was glad, for there was no one in the entirety of this wretched red castle she wished to speak to.

Not for the first time, she dreamt of Robb’s victory, of Joffrey's severed head on a pike as it rotted for far longer than their fathers had been, of her beloved friend Jeyne, of what was left of her family safe in Winterfell, and smiled in her sleep.

-:-

The day on which Margaery was finally permitted to go to the land above, she lay upon the rocks and watched the sunset, and felt more peaceful than she ever thought possible.

The royal ship was so massive it was as if it believed it could block out the sun itself.

Margaery knew it was a royal ship, even before she saw the golden crown planted on the head of the boy within. It was far too elaborate to be anything else, ladened with gold, and bearing the royal sigil on all of the numerous flags. It had many windows, as though the inhabitants wanted everyone to see what occurred within, and the people who were rowing it looked so exhausted Margaery hoped they would not have to sail much further.

It was then that she saw the girl.

She had never seen anyone who looked so unhappy, and it terrified her. The girl was staring at the crowned boy in terror. What had she been through to produce such palpable sadness?

The girl said something Margaery could not hear, and she could only watch as the guards began to beat her. Margaery bit her tongue to hold back a scream, for she knew if they spotted her she would be killed, just as her father warned. Panicked, she hid behind the rock in front of her, as the moon rose.

Margaery realised that this was the wicked king her Grandmother had told her about, and knew that she would do whatever it took to save that poor girl from any harm.

-:-

Sansa knew the ship was sinking, even before she saw the king’s dagger buried in the captain’s back. She did not weep as she watched Joffery sail away on a lifeboat, boasting about how he would be known as the Surviving King. As the waves tossed the boat around, she fell from it and closed her eyes.

She wasn’t drowning. She was home.

She could feel herself slipping away completely, before she felt strong arms encircling her, dragging her upwards.

No, She thought uselessly, her mouth full of salt water, choking her. Please, let me go. Let me die.

But the stranger did not.

For a moment, she wondered if Sandor Clegane had somehow found her, but dismissed it for she felt that a man as heavily built as him would have difficulty swimming. Whoever was holding her swam effortlessly.

She did not remember much after that, only finding consciousness on the beach, with a pair of lovely doe eyes staring down at her.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

“Why -“ Sansa coughed, struggled to sit up. “Why did you save me?”

“I want very much for you to be happy,” the girl replied, her voice as matter-a-fact as it could ever be. Sansa was reminded of a lady in a song she thought she had forgotten. She knew that all those songs were useless to her now, but she could recall them all still if she tried.

At the sound of footsteps rushing towards her, the girl vanished as quickly as she had appeared, leaving Sansa wondering if she had only been a beautiful dream.

  
-:-

When Margaery warned her family of what she had seen, her father threw a knife into the wall of the palace in frustration.

“That bastard king,” Her Grandmother hissed. “I should have killed him the second I heard.”

“Grandmother,” Margaery tried to keep her composure. “What do I do? I can’t just leave her, can I? And if that’s what he does to her, imagine what he must do to the commoners.”

“You’re right.” Her Grandmother agreed.

“I’ll kill him,” Margaery told her, with determination.

“What?”

“I said, I’ll kill him.” Margaery repeated. “I’ll go to surface and make sure he pays for his crimes.”

Her father sighed. “Very noble of you, dear, but how exactly do you plan to do that?”

“I will ask for the help of the Sea Witch, Melisandre.”

-:-

The Boy King looked so enraged to find her alive, soaked to the bone, shivering and covered in sand but alive, that Sansa thought he may drag her to the cells beneath The Keep and have her executed just as he did her father.

To her surprise, he did not.

She seemed doomed to survive.

She spent several days wondering the rose garden in a daze, thinking of her saviour. She was certain she had not been a dream, for Sansa’s dreams were not full of beautiful things, not anymore. Would she ever see her again?

She tried not to hope for things she was almost certain she would not get, but she couldn't help it.

-:-

  
The Sea Witch, Melisandre, had been banished to a cave at the bottom of the ocean for crimes no one dared to speak of long before Margaery had been born, and as she swam deeper and deeper she could not imagine what she might find. Before Margaery had left her home, her grandmother had slipped her a bottle of poison.

“Poison may be a woman’s weapon,” her grandmother scoffed. “But it is an affective one.”

The cave itself had very little light from the outside, so much so that Margaery could not see her. She thought she heard a little girl screaming, but when she tried to swim towards her the sound faded away. She felt a shiver run up her spine as she felt something grip her tail, something sharp, something alive. She did not like to imagine what else was there, so she pulled herself free and swam inside.

“Melisandre, are you there?” She called. “I - I need your help.”

“I’m happy to oblige,” Melisandre replied, stepping out of the shadows. “For the right price, of course. What is it you need?”

“A brutal king from the land of the mortals has put both an innocent girl and his entire kingdom under a reign of terror,” Margaery explained. “I need to go to the surface, kill him, and save them all. Can you help me?”

Melisandre smiled and Margaery shuddered. “Of course I can.”

“Name your price.” It was not a question.

“I can give you what you desire,” Melisandre promised. “It is a very stupid thing to want, for mortal women rarely love women as they do mortal men, but you shall have your way. But I warn you, it will bring you to sorrow. Human lives are not as they are in songs. I can help you rid yourself of your tail, give you two legs instead of it, so that you may save the young woman and an entire kingdom, so that you may finally feel useful.” And then the witch laughed so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and lay there wriggling about.

Despite this, Margaery would not be deterred.

“I don’t care how foolish it may sound to you,” Margaery told her. ”If you help me, I know I can achieve it.”

Melisandre sighed. “I will prepare a potion for you, and in the morning you must swim to the land before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into legs, but you will feel great pain, as if a sword were forever passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives. If you can bear all of this, I will help you.”

“Yes, I will,” Margaery repeated, as she thought of the lady she so desperately hoped to save, of the cruel king finally slain.

“Think again,” Melisandre snapped. “If you take human form, you will never return through the water to your family, or to Highgarden ever again; and if you do not do what you achieve, you will turn to sea foam.”

“I don’t care. I’ll do it,” said Margaery, and she became pale as death itself. “You failed to mention the price.”

“You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm almost any land dweller with it,” Melisandre said. “Give me your voice, and you shall have what you want.”

“But if you take away my voice, what is left for me?”

The sea witch rolled her eyes. “What is left of you, you ask? Well, your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain any human heart. Well then, have you lost your courage? Do you wish to pay the price?”

“No.” Margaery said. “Never.”

Margaery put out her tongue, and felt almost nothing as Melisandre cut it out and dropped it into the drought. She almost felt foolish for worrying she may choke to death on her own blood.

Melisandre handed her a glowing bottle, and as the morning came, Margaery only hoped she had not been tricked.

-:-

When Sansa found her former saviour again, lying on that same beach, she feared the girl was dead.

Sansa knelt beside her. She had seen men die before and could recognise the signs.

Please, wake up, she prayed to whoever may be listening to her. Please, don’t let her die as I wished I could have.

“Are you -“

The girls eyes snapped open and Sansa gasped. “It’s you! You - you saved me.”

The girl grabbed Sansa’s outstretched hands and Sansa helped her up. The girl stood awkwardly, as though she had never been on land before.

The girl looked at her once more and smiled, and Sansa thought of love she did not believe any would want from her.

“I never got your name,” Sansa stumbled over her words. “My name is Sansa Stark.”

The girl touched her throat.

“Oh! You can’t speak?” Sansa was confused as she could remember the girl speaking when she had saved her, but decided not to question it.

The girl shook her head, but made gestures as if to indicate she could write.

“I…” It suddenly occurred to Sansa that there was almost nowhere safe for this girl to go. “I could take you to where I live, is that...alright?”

The girl nodded. She glanced the ocean and grabbed Sansa’s hand, and for a second, Sansa felt a rush of warmth flow through her.

Sansa pointed towards the ugly red castle that always looked as though the walls themselves were bleeding. “That is...where I live. It’s not my home, but I suppose I don’t have a home anymore.”

The girl looked at her as though she understood exactly how she felt.

“I never said thank you,” Sansa told her.

The girl gave her a quizzical look.

“Thank you, for saving my life.”

The girl grinned at her, as though she felt there was still hope for her, and Sansa felt that her presence would change everything.

-:-

The first words Margaery ever wrote on land was her own name, though she hoped Sansa could read her handwriting. There weren’t many places to write beneath the ocean, so she had learned on stone tablets left from long forgotten times.

“A beautiful name,” Sansa remarked, looking far more cheerful than before Margaery had arrived. “Like a queen’s.”

Margaery enjoyed Sansa’s company. What she did not enjoy was the horrid men who often came to Sansa without permission. Margaery shot the man who she felt most resembled a blobfish a dangerous look and hoped he would get the hint.

She wasn’t jealous, for she knew these men had no chance. She only wanted Sansa to be safe for the men didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer.

Margaery had seen little of the horrid king and she was grateful for it. When Sansa had brought her to the castle, Sansa had told the courtesans that Margaery was a widowed queen, who’s tongue had been removed by her husband’s murderers. She could tell Sansa hated lying, but what else could they do?

It seemed that the court, when they weren’t being scared into submission, found Margaery a great curiosity. Often, they wondered aloud when she would be married again. She had received four offers on her first day, but she had refused them all. There was only one person she would consider marrying, and she wasn’t even sure if that was allowed.

There was only one place in the entirety of this awful castle where no one dared speak to them, and it was also the place where Sansa prayed for the kind of things that Margaery knew were too dangerous to speak aloud.

“My brother is at war against this wretched house,” Sansa whispered so quietly Margaery struggled to hear her. “I pray for his victory, and for a never-ending summer, although I should know better.”

There was one constant: Margaery hardly left Sansa’s side, and never wanted to let go of Sansa’s hand.

-:-

“Joffery intents to hold a ball,” Sansa sounded almost disbelieving. “I can only hope he keeps the torture of small animals to a minimum. I don’t want to imagine why he’s doing this.”

Margaery shrugged. Don’t you enjoy parties?

“At home I did, and I thought I would,” Sansa reflected. “I longed to see this place, stupid girl that I was.”

I’ll go with you, Margaery scribbled.

“I wasn’t even considering leaving you behind,” Sansa said. “I dread to think of what may happen if I...wait, do you know how to dance?”

Margaery shook her head, glancing toward her feet in the same way she had when they had first met, as though she wasn’t used to them.

Sansa offered Margaery her hand. “I could...teach you, if you wanted?”

Margaery nodded eagerly, and took Sansa’s hand once more.

-:-

It didn’t take long for Margaery to find the king’s chalice in the kitchens, and felt no guilt as she poured the poison into it.

As they watched the Boy King writhe on the floor - clawing at his neck, face turning purple - Margaery suppressed the urge to cheer.

She thought of what Sansa had told her of what had happened after her rescue.

Survivor King indeed, she thought, scornfully.

-:-

Sansa stood frozen, unable to process what was happening. She looked towards Margaery and saw her mouth one word: run. Her feet seemed glued to the floor. She felt Margaery’s hand grip hers, felt herself being dragged away from Joffery, from the corpse that had once been a king.

Sansa and Margaery found themselves on the beach again.

“Margaery,” Sansa’s anxiety was palpable. “Where are we going?”

Margaery pointed towards the sea.

“But, we don’t have a boat.” A realisation dawned on her. “How are we going to -“

Sansa then realised that Margaery wasn’t only pointing towards the ocean. She was pointing towards a woman within it, with a fishes tail.

Sansa thought of safety and love, of all the things she felt she would never get.

She swallowed. She needed somewhere to hide, and even the songs only speculated of what lay at the bottom of the sea. She gazed into Margaery’s eyes and made her choice.

In response, Sansa gripped Margaery’s hands within hers and kissed her once.

A glowing light surrounded them and Margaery led her to the ocean. Sansa felt her legs transform into a tail that shone in the sunlight.

“Sansa,” Sansa heard that voice again, the one she was almost certain was Margaery’s. “You’ll be safe with me, until your brother wins the war. Then you can return to land, and come back whenever you wish. You’ll be happy at Highgarden, I know it.”

 _Robb will kill them all,_ she thought once more, exultingly.

“I’ll be happy wherever you are,” Sansa smiled and gripped Margaery’s hand, and they swam down to Highgarden together.

**Author's Note:**

> i know, i know, it’s been half a year since i did one of these and it probably makes no sense but...idk i’ve been hit with a lot of writer’s block lately and i just needed to upload something and this has literally been sitting - half finished - in my google docs for half the year so...
> 
> also: i named this after a book that was sold as ‘lesbian little mermaid’ but turned out to be extremely lesbophobic. 
> 
> anyway! happy twentygayteen! sansa stark is a lesbian and so am i!


End file.
